AMAZING STORY

Kevin Ramsby: More Life to Live

By Christine McWorter
The 700 Club

CBN.com -Kevin Ramsby tells how it all started. “When I heard the crashing window, the glass breaking and falling to the ground, it startled me. “

Inner city pastor Kevin Ramsby was home alone when and intruder broke in. He couldn’t find a weapon, so he grabbed a tennis racket and ran downstairs.

“I remember yelling ‘This is my house!’ letting someone know that I was there. When I got to the bottom last two steps, I was racing... At that time that a man came racing around the corner. That’s when we first saw each other face to face and came eye to eye with each other. I quickly noticed he had a large knife in his hand. It was slow motion. It was almost surreal. When I first saw the knife, I remember my first thought was, ‘I can’t believe this is happening.’”

“He was using the knife, and he kept repeatedly just stabbing. He began to stab me to the back of the head and my neck, right on my spine and my shoulders. The only words he spoke to me was, ‘Where is the money?’ and ‘Where are the keys?’”

“At that point in time is when the first thought of death came across my mind, and that’s when I answered him, ‘It doesn’t matter any more. I’m dead.’ At that point in time I remember just putting my head on my kitchen floor, the cold ceramic floor and closed my eyes and waited to die. I was convinced my life was over. “

Thankfully, his wife and children were out of town visiting family. Kevin began to pray for them.

“I was praying, ‘God let Sarah know how much she’s meant to me.’ I began thinking of my daughter Katelyn, and I began praying for her that God would be her father. I began to praying that my son Noah would always know that living for Jesus was the greatest thing he could ever do. As I was praying for Noah, it was almost as if God interrupted my prayer and I heard the words ‘They still need you.’ All of a sudden, everything within me began to… I was infused with energy and hope and … ‘I’ve got to do something,’”

“My insides had come on the outside of me, and I had to pick them up, and stand to my feet and begin carrying my intestines and was able to make it down the steps and get out the side door, and made it to a neighbor’s house.”

His neighbor called 911. When Kevin arrived at the hospital, the doctors discovered he had 37 stab wounds.

“My face, my neck, in my temple, in my spine, in my chest, in my abdomen – all throughout my body… The doctors and the nurses really didn’t think I had any chance of making it. They’d never seen someone come in with so many stab wounds. “

Finally, Sarah received word from the hospital.

Sarah describes her reaction to the news. “I had nothing to say but ‘Jesus!’ It wasn’t a screaming Jesus, It was just a ‘Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.’ It was all I had.”

As Kevin underwent surgery, Sarah drove with their children for seven agonizing hours to the hospital.

Sarah continues, “It was like a numb feeling. It was like ‘I can’t even feel until I get there.’

By the time she arrived, Kevin was out of surgery. “Walking into that room and seeing him for the first time - It was like love and thankfulness, that ‘Oh my gosh, here’s my husband and he’s alive.’”

None of his major organs was damaged, and the recovery only took 5 months.

Kevin knew he had not alone that night. “To have 37 stab wounds and to have no organs and arteries hit, to me was just evidence that God somehow was there keeping me during that struggle.”

Kevin has forgiven his attacker, who was arrested a short time later. “I saw the man for the first time in 2 years. My first reaction when I left that courtroom is I went back into the witness room and began to weep. It was over him. I made a commitment that I would not hold a grudge against this man.”

“The enemy comes to kill steal and destroy, and to rob us of hope and a future. God comes to bring just the opposite.”

“There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t thank Him for life. For many years, I’ve prayed the prayers, ‘Lord, thanks for waking me up today and for the breath.’ But those words have real weight and meaning in my life, and every single day to me is a gift.”